Our Monthly Devotions

by Albert A. Lings

Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, etc., etc.

Tenth Day.

The Holy Ghost infuses into our hearts sanctifying grace, by which we become pleasing to God, and we can call Him Our Father. What a great grace this is—to be pleasing to God! We had sinned and had become aliens to God's kindness and grace. We did not live a simple, natural life, for our existence was sinful after the fall of Adam and Eve. But the Holy Spirit came again into our hearts, and we were created new beings. The old scars of sin and condemnation disappeared, and our present supernatural condition is nobler, perhaps, than was the condition of Adam before his fall. It was this consideration which caused the Fathers of the Church, and the Church herself, in her paschal song of the “Exultet,” to exclaim, “O happy fault, which gave the occasion to almighty God to rescue us from eternal death, and to give us new life, in the resurrection of the Lord.” Great, then, is the love of the Holy Ghost for us. He wishes to claim us as His temples.

Prayer.

Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, etc., etc.

Eleventh Day.

We are, therefore, different from Adam; since the Fall our condition has been changed. Adam at his creation was constituted in the state of grace, placed in that blessed condition by the goodness of the Holy Ghost. The justice which Adam received was the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul, which illuminated his mind to such a degree that he not only understood the things about him, but it also gave him a sight of heaven itself, and the perfections of God. Hence Adam, the pure creature, grand and noble as he was, created and gifted by almighty God, was a favored being indeed, and all mankind after him. For we also are created by God, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us by Baptism, and therefore are children of God by a still greater reason than Adam was. The power of the Holy Ghost has thus been displayed in the creation of man, in the continuation of his existence, and in all his work up to the present time.

Prayer.